Moderation, Not Apathy

Your point about community is borne out by one of the driving forces behind local "megachurches" - not the national ones, but the local ones that build large campuses with large community centers integrated into them. They do fill a role in our world where we don't seem to know our neighbors any more.

Those goals can best be achieved not by belittling and mocking moderate religious people, and driving them into the arms of the fundamentalists, but by actively reaching out to them-- actively reaching out, mind, not "We're happy to work with Ken Miller as long as he doesn't talk about God"

Well, sure. I don't think anyone wants to stop people with people with theological views similar to Ken Miller and Francis Collins from being strongly involved in various battles involving science and religion. They are indeed in the very thick of things, even as they strongly and publicly defend said theological opinions. Collins in particular has asserted that unguided biology cannot explain how morality evolved and that naturalism cannot support a meaningful ethics - God has to be involved somewhere. Miller meanwhile has written a book on "Finding Darwin's God." This is precisely as it should be - the fact that one is a scientist hardly means one can have no public positions on matters that aren't precisely science but are related.

The question is whether people with views opposed to religion are to be afforded that same decency. As far as I'm concerned it's a matter of simple consistency - if Miller, Collins, Freeman Dyson, Frank Tipler, and the Templeton brigade can all express views on science and religion, I fail to see why Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Victor Stenger need exercise restraint. Either there's a gag order on scientists talking about religion - pro or con - or there's a healthy public discussion involving a robust exchange of ideas. Asking just one side to tone it down won't cut it. Nor is it a wonderfully moderate, however convenient that outcome might be politically.

I feel that we are almost completely on the same page, here, Chad. I'm glad you have decided to speak up on this issue, because ScienceBlogs was starting to seem like an unfriendly place to me.

Your post from 2006 perfectly captures my feelings about religion. There really are (at least) three aspects of religion. I would call them morality, mythology and community. The good aspect of religion that is almost completely absent from any other nonreligious organization is the breadth of the sense of community. Nonreligious types certainly have a sense of community, as well, but it seems to be limited to fairly narrow groups. Scientists have a sense of community, but does it include the janitor at the physics department? Politics makes for a sense of community, but it only includes those who broadly agree with you on politics.

A church is one of the few places that I know of where rich and poor, educated and uneducated, intellectual and the not so bright can come together and interact as fellow members of the human race.

The vocal anti-religious types make fun of the intelligence or rationality of believers, but to me, the unimportance of being a genius is one of the wonderful things about church. As I point out often, fully half of the population is below the mean intelligence. They aren't going to be scientists, no matter what. They aren't going to make a contribution to our understanding of quantum gravity. They aren't going to cure cancer or develop artificial intelligence or elucidate the evolution of the cephalopod visual system. Where do these people, fully half of the human race (probably much more than half) fit into the vision of science uber alles? For many people, the alternative is not between religious beliefs and science, it is between religious belief and nothing much---just survival and keeping amused, I suppose.

I think that religion gives ordinary people a sense of community, of being part of something bigger than themselves, which is important for many people.

I certainly agree with many atheist critics that religion can be harmful when its moralizing emphasizes oppression of women, or gays, or members of other religions, or atheists. It is terrible when superstitious religious beliefs get in the way of the study of science. It is terrible when superstitious religious beliefs cause people to substitute faith healing for modern medicine in treating illness. These negative aspects of religion can and should be fought. But I don't see that fighting against religious beliefs, when they don't cause harm, is something worthwhile.

It might be nice to have an "atheistic religion", with the positive aspects of religion without the negative aspects (such as irrational beliefs). I think that Zen Buddhism might actually be such an atheistic religion. But until we have a decent replacement for theistic religion, I want to fight the bad symptoms and let people believe what they want to believe.

Those goals can best be achieved not by belittling and mocking moderate religious people, and driving them into the arms of the fundamentalists, but by actively reaching out to them-- actively reaching out, mind, not "We're happy to work with Ken Miller as long as he doesn't talk about God"-- and engaging them to work for a saner world now.

Thank you for expressing this viewpoint, with which I am completely in agreement.

There is a significant qualitative difference between religious moderates and fundamentalists. There is no contradiction inherent in being a scientist with moderate religious beliefs; science and religion are (or should be) orthogonal concepts. Fundamentalists insist that the One True Way is to follow the Holy Book as they interpret it, and anything that contradicts said Holy Book is ipso facto false. Fundamentalists cannot be reasoned with, so mockery is a tempting choice. The trap is that it is too easy to mock the moderately religious along with the fundamentalists, and as you point out, we want the moderates on our side, not theirs. (Our government fell into a similar trap in driving moderate Muslims toward the anti-American views of the Islamists.)

BTW, I have noticed that the volume with which a person proclaims his Christianity is inversely correlated with the degree to which he actually follows Christ's philosophy. The bit about "Cast the beam out of thine own eye, that thou canst see to remove the mote from thy neighbor's eye" is one that the fundamentalists routinely ignore. (I'm quoting that verse from memory, so I may have a little word or two off.)

While on the one hand I think I agree with you, I do have to wonder about comments like:

I also think that people should pay less attention to the easy task of how best to mock the core metaphysical beliefs of major world religions, and put some thought into the hard problem of how to offer people a positive alternative to religious communities.

It seems like what you are saying is that while you don't want to "mock" people out of religious belief, you still want them to get out of religious belief. You are luring flies with sugar, not driving them away from where they were with smoke. (Or something like that). While this is a step away from "We're happy to work with Ken Miller as long as he doesn't talk about God", I do wonder how big a step it is.

Here, here. Making fun of easy targets is funny the first 1000 times. After that, it's gets a bit tedious. Like Chad, I find myself longing for something a bit more substantive than just repeating the same old arguments and taunts over and over again at high decibels.

I agree with you too. Although, I think it is important that we do not throw Dawkins, Harris, PZ and the like under the bus, as it sometimes seems. The rhetoric gets mighty rough on both sides when expressed in the blogs, but everything I've ever heard about with both Dawkins and Myers in person, at least, is that they are very very strong in their statements about ideals, but they are extremely kind, polite and considerate to others as people. That's an important distinction that needs to be made. We can be vocal and point out where we think ideas are nuts, but not villify the person who holds those ideas.

To steal a phrase... "hate the sin, love the sinner"... or something to that effect.

(in all honesty, I HATE that phrase... it reminds me of the Rodney Dangerfield line about the ugly hat in the golf shop in caddyshack... "Oh, but it looks good on you!!" Still, though, there is a distinction to be made between ideas and people)

To religious non-right:

I think it may help you to look at it from the point of view of someone who is an atheist. Those of us who have made the leap to this viewpoint--in the US at least--have mostly done so after having religion held up in front of us as absolutely necessary to live a moral and just life. Obviously, we don't agree with that. Once you've made the logical leap and realize that there is no guiding deity or force, then the view that there is a god is, to us, just like believing in Santa Claus. I am not trying to be demeaning, but just honest. I think Chad's point that, to shout that out all the time is a bad idea, is correct. But also, I think to act like that's not part of what most atheists think is disingenuous.

I like to think of it like when I go home for the holidays and have to talk to my conservative uncle. He's a great guy, honest, hard-working, caring, and the like. So I respect him a lot. But his political ideas are wacky. I feel the same way about religion. I can have great respect for religious people based on the way they carry themselves in their lives and their actions. So, when I'm working with my religious colleagues, they know where I stand. But we just don't talk about that aspect very much. Instead, we focus on the points where we can work together.

Obviously, we don't agree with that. Once you've made the logical leap and realize that there is no guiding deity or force, then the view that there is a god is, to us, just like believing in Santa Claus.

One quick thing that I should say is that I have not been a Christian all my life, I was a skeptic for several years, so I am not totally unfamiliar with that viewpoint.

While I certainly understand that someone who doesn't believe in God may very well think that believing in God is like believing in Santa Claus, hopefully you can understand that the "logical leap" you speak of is something that I'm missing. Am I just not capable/not desiring of (to) see it? Am I suffering from the dreaded "cognitive dissonance" (ominous drum-roll). Perhaps, but that does very little for me (just as the idea that if you "just believed" it (Christianity) would all make sense does very little for you I'd bet).

I tend to think that atheism is "wacky".

All in all though, I find it very hard as someone who is religious and not a fundamentalist to really speak up too much about this issue, as neither side in the "culture war" really seems to be too welcoming. Every once and awhile I pipe up though.

I've just read your linked posts, thanks for that. I think broadly speaking I agree with you, or at least in part. I don't think my initial ideas of your position was that far wrong from what you said actually, it was just put very badly - I should have cut out apathetic entirely when I decided it wasn't what I meant rather than leave it in.

I would definitely agree with your view that the social/community aspect of religions are often seemingly neglected whilst having a powerful role. It's not something special to religions though, it is effectively just tribalism - humans like forming groups with each other based on all sorts of wild and crazy things. We've always done it and probably always will and those often wild and crazy notions can give us shared symbols and ideas to draw on and refer to, none of which is necessarily bad.

The problems arise when one of those groups stands up and insists that it's wild and crazy notion is the One True Notion and everyone should follow it, despite the fact that most people involved will privately acknowledge it is in fact rubbish. For example, the claim that the Abramamic God exists has no more importance, weight, evidence or general usefulness than the claim that Zeus exists, or that Thor's hammer is called Mjollnir, or that the Flying Spaghetti Monster has a noodley appendage. So when one group stands up and insists that their favoured wacky notion should take priority over all others even to the extent of legislating it so, that needs to be stopped as soon as humanly possible.

This is where I think the full spectrum of efforts is needed. As you say, people are a lot easier to convince if you are not shouting at them and telling them they are wrong, especially if they are getting constant social reinforcement from their peers in that same group. Talking to them, the "soft words" approach will get a lot further and certainly needs to be done.
However, in order to stop the wacky notion of the group becoming enforced on all others it usually needs a louder, more rambunctious and blunter set of tactics to even raise the issue in the first place let alone make sure anything is done about it in a timely fashion. Without the issue raised, without anyone threatening to give the towers of preconstructed belief a good shaking, few people will be inclined to hear the soft words of the middle in the first place.

So both "extremes" have an important role to play, neither in my opinon being any more or less necessary than the other. In otherwords, you need the screeching monkeys just as much as they need your drooling appeasement, which is good because you both spend about as much time insulting each other as you do complaining that the other side just insults you. ;)

R N-R,

I understand your point. In fact, in our society, I think every atheist pretty much gets it that if you're religious, you cannot understand the "wacky" point of atheism. But my point is that this goes both ways. We atheists think the religious viewpoint is "wacky". At some point, we have to say to each other that, OK, we don't agree with your point of view, and here's why. Now, let's move on. We're not going to convince each other by shouting about it, but we CAN still talk about it and explain our positions. And then we can still work together towards mutually desirable goals (advancement of science education, for example).

I think that's what's missing in this polarized debate. It looks like there are two options being put forth for us atheists.

1) Scream bloody murder every time someone brings up a religious point of view in relation to science.
2) Say nothing and sit quietly in the corner.

Why not speak out clearly, passionately, and respectfully about why we hold the positions that we hold? Realize that others will disagree, try to find common ground, and move on? There is a middle ground here that doesn't involve either shutting up or alienating others.

Re: screechy monkeys.

It's a nice phrase, and we all know what it means. It's so nicely descriptive of a certain behavior.

However, it looks like it is starting to be used (and I'm not saying by you) to label anyone one disagrees with, regardless of how much screeching they are doing.

Folks are reporting on Pharangula that Nisbet is removing quite a few comments that seem pretty innocuous (he's doing moderation right now--not the kind of moderation you are calling for), and he's referring back to your original screechy monkey post to (implicitly) justify it.

We're not going to convince each other by shouting about it, but we CAN still talk about it and explain our positions. And then we can still work together towards mutually desirable goals (advancement of science education, for example).

True.

Why not speak out clearly, passionately, and respectfully about why we hold the positions that we hold? Realize that others will disagree, try to find common ground, and move on? There is a middle ground here that doesn't involve either shutting up or alienating others.

While I agree, I think one can speak out passionately, respectfully and and clearly, but also carefully. What do I mean by this? Well, I can take PZ's writings as a good example. While I support his right to say what he says, I think it really should be realized and acknowledged that what he says is going to drive away some religious moderates. In some ways I would actually say he is supporting ID and creationism, by heightening the division that ID wants to heighten. As long as ID can make the issue "Religion or science" and can foster even the SLIGHTEST doubt, many religious people will choose religion. That's really what I think the real strength of ID is. Not so much giving "evidence", but taking that wedge and driving it further into the populace. The way to stop that isn't to give them more logs to split, but taking away their wedge.

Frankly I think that ID and creationism should be attacked primarily theologically (though this is circumstance dependent, I think the common circumstance is not "I've been swayed by creationist evidence" but "there is something supporting creationism, and its Biblical and moral to believe the creationist interpretation"). I speak only from personal experience on this one, but I've had FAR more success talking to people who are creationists by bringing up quotes from people like the GK Chesterton, Lewis, and Augustine which are basically pro-science, and anti-creationism than I have by citing the many, many, many, many (many?) critiques of creationism/ID/whatever the current phrase is. It knocks out the wedge as it were.

I should also mention that I speak as someone who was pro-creationism for some time. (I never really donated to AiG or anything like that but I was pro-creationism).

I was until I read a paper by Dembski. After that... things kinda went downhill. That worked for me, but then again I'm getting a PH.D in computer science.

That's not going to work for everyone.

I live in a largely secular society where very few people go to church (or whatever). This religious "community" that you talk about is something I can recognize but it's not an important part of the society that I experience. It's even less important in Europe where a substantial majority of people don't feel the need to define their "community" by shared religious beliefs.

To me, the emphasis on "community" as a defense of religion seems perilously close to "cult." You don't excuse a cult just because it makes everyone feel good, do you?

What, exactly, do you want people like me to do? None of my weakly religious friends are bound to a church. None of them look to their co-religionists for a sense of community. The hold of the Christian churches has largely been broken in my society. There's no reason for me to find alternatives to the "community" that you see as a reason for holding on to religion.

I'm interested in taking the battle to the next level. People in my society have mostly abandoned the churches and now they're ready to give up the last vestiges of superstition.

That's part of the problem, Chad. You're trying to make everyone behave as though they lived in the same place you do.

I don't think you're so much apathetic as you simply hate to talk about it. Everything you say on the subject is interwoven with comments about screechy monkeys and how much you despise talking about it. Just sayin'...

I know you don't really pay attention to the discussion, so you probably see only PZ and a few others. Maybe it will make you feel better to know that there are more moderate voices out there who don't simply say, "Religion is stupid, get over it." Not everything in atheist-land revolves around PZ and his pharynguloid minions.

I think you are right on the mark when it comes to the importance of communities, and I would add there's also something going on around the ethical instruction of children. There is a lot to be said for being part of a larger group that provides a different voice against the messages children and teens get from the entertainment industry, the media and the social cliques at schools.

I started going back to church after a twenty-year absence (and after about 15 years as an atheist) when I had children. If I had not had children, I might not ever have returned to organized religion.

I also know a family member and a neighbor, who are not religious believers but who are now going to Unitarian churches precisely because they missed that sense of community, and they specifically wanted a community that would help them instill ethical values in their children (as opposed to the value set purveyed by an aggressive mass-market culture that spends billions training people to be wallet openers, and not much else).

I think there is a huge need and potentially a big demand for non-God/supernatural believing communities which would also take on ethics instruction for children and young people, and would also teach them that their potential and value as human persons is not best represented by advertisers.

I think there is a huge need and potentially a big demand for non-God/supernatural believing communities which would also take on ethics instruction for children and young people, and would also teach them that their potential and value as human persons is not best represented by advertisers.

While I can't see how this won't get me in hot water, I hope it won't light me on fire, but I tend to think that these will be impossible to create. Not so much for the non-God part (not all religions are theistic) but for the non-supernatural part. I have to admit that I'm biased though.

Religious Non-Right,

I would love to see how people would tackle it. Maybe some good studies on moral reasoning and cognitive research would give insights on constructing the curriculum. I thought there was something in Time magazine recently about Sunday Schools popping up for atheist families -- in Boston, I think.

Surely people could come up with some way to evict the supernatural from ethics when teaching the small fry . . .

rjb: I think that's what's missing in this polarized debate. It looks like there are two options being put forth for us atheists.

1) Scream bloody murder every time someone brings up a religious point of view in relation to science.
2) Say nothing and sit quietly in the corner.

Why not speak out clearly, passionately, and respectfully about why we hold the positions that we hold? Realize that others will disagree, try to find common ground, and move on? There is a middle ground here that doesn't involve either shutting up or alienating others.

It looks that way, provided you follow PZ's lead and willfully misread what I'm saying.

"[S]peak out clearly, passionately, and respectfully" is exactly what I'm advocating. With extra emphasis on "respectfully." It's possible to advocate for atheism in a positive way, without insulting and belittling moderate religious people.

I'm even fine with calling wing-nut fundamentalists names-- this is, after all, the fifth post in which I've referred to a certain subset of annoying idiots as "screechy monkeys." It would require some gall to say that nobody else could ever call anyone else an insulting name. If you want to call Pat Robertson a creepy vampire with fascist leanings, by all means, go ahead.

What I object to is using insulting names-- such as "Neville Chamberlain atheist"-- to refer to people who are on your side, and insulting people who are trying to help. That's not just offensive, it's stupidly offensive, and it's repeated instances of this behavior that have led me to write off the entire "new atheist" crowd as irredeemably childish.

Acuah: Folks are reporting on Pharangula that Nisbet is removing quite a few comments that seem pretty innocuous (he's doing moderation right now--not the kind of moderation you are calling for), and he's referring back to your original screechy monkey post to (implicitly) justify it.

You will note from the picture and bio at the top of the left sidebar that I am not Matt Nisbet. I don't even look much like him.

What Nisbet chooses to do on his own blog is his business, not mine. I have previously stated my moderation policy, and I don't anticipate changing it. If someone says something that I disagree with in a tone that indicates that they're not worth talking to, I'm just going to ignore them. If Nisbet chooses to do otherwise, that's not my problem.

Chad, thank you for this post, and especially the links to your previous posts. You've helped me work out some issues that I've been having with a (non-religious) area of my life, but one that's related to some of the things you've been talking about.

I think one of the things that's important to creating this alternative community that you would like to see, is a common goal. It's not enough just to get together for coffee every once in a while; there needs to be a reason to be getting together (and there's nothing that says you can't have coffee; it's just not enough).

I direct a community (i.e. not a church) choir. Importantly, it's also not a 'classical' choir; we're a show choir, so we do some Broadway, some pop, some very light 'serious' music, some swing, even some gospel, and we put (limited, easy) dance moves to the songs to add even more pizzazz. It's not high art and none of us fools ourselves into thinking it is.

We perform mainly at seniors' homes, community centres, fundraisers - anywhere that wants us, really. And we're a charity, so we sing for free. (We do encourage the places we sing to donate to us to help us keep doing this, and they almost always do.)

The point is that there's a similar feeling of community in this group as you describe for churches. We have a huge diversity of musical/singing ability from people who just sing for the heck of it, but wouldn't (and perhaps shouldn't) sing solos in public, to people who have made a living with music but do something else now. (Why are they singing with this group when they could probably make music with actual professionals? Not sure, but the next bit may have something to do with it...)

I feel that the choir, and groups like it, can be (as you put it) "communities that fill the same social needs without the objectionable beliefs". As you might be able to tell from my description, we're much more about liking each other and having fun together - in other words, being a community - than being 'seriously musical' or anything like that. (We aren't a 'fundamentalist' choir, in other words.)

I think it is important that we do have the common goals of being as musical as we can and wanting to entertain and all that. I think it's the foundation of all we do. But I think the main benefit to the choir members is the whole community aspect, even if we are only a small community of less than 60 people.

One piece of evidence in support of this thesis is that it's the people who get all 'religious' about the choir - want us to sing every note perfectly, or do more/harder choreography, etc. - who tend to drive others away. It's much like you said about "the pastor who made a political statement of some sort, and saw half his congregation disappear." The people who get that we're at least as much about the social aspect as about the musical (in the same way that churches, for you, are as much about the social aspect as the religious), are the people who make it worthwhile to do.

And I think the power of making music together (e.g. has anyone here heard of the Singing Revolution in late-80s/early-90s Estonia?) simply reinforces that sense of community.

I was talking about this to a friend, and he asked whether most of the people in the choir are also religious. (Asking because, of course, almost all churches have choirs. Hm, could that be reinforcing that sense of community? That's almost too obvious even to have bothered asking!)

Interestingly enough, it's a mix. In fact, it's almost a direct parallel:  In the same way as you get a range of singers in a church of people who relate to each other religiously (and in other ways, as you've pointed out), in a choir of people who relate to each other musically (as described above) you get a full range of religious beliefs, from the likes of me (almost, but not quite a 'Pharynguloid') to the people who can't attend all of our rehearsals because of being in their church choir.

Religion doesn't come up much in the choir (for which I'm grateful), except in the (very small group of) us who choose music. And there, we tend to be wary of being too 'churchy', because that's not the kind of choir we are. There's some entertaining music out there that happens to have been written by Christians or have Christian lyrics associated with it (old-time gospel tunes, for example). That doesn't make the music bad, even to me, though it can, in many cases make it unusable for our purposes.

(My own view tends to match that of George Carlin's "The only good thing ever to come out of religion was the music." Sorry.)

But it means that we can pick some good Christian insired music without it turning into a big religious show. And if the lyrics to some of the Christian-inspired songs happen to describe or refer to certain fantastic (as in fantasy) phenomena, well, so does "Puff the Magic Dragon" and no one gets worked up over that.

It makes me wonder how many people belong to a church not only for the community aspect, but also for the chance to sing, because that's the only choir - or place to find a choir - that they know of.

It's not a trivial thing to maintain a choir, any more than (I'd guess) it's especially easy to keep a church going, but it is (to me) worthwhile (as is the effort for people who maintain churches, to them! Important fact to keep in mind, church-bashers.). And I am now realizing - thanks to having read these posts - what has been true all along: that it's the community aspect that makes the choir worthwhile and is itself worth fostering and nurturing, as well as any ability to be musical and entertaining to which we aspire.

I came close to concluding that musical institutions could perhaps replace religious institutions, when and as possible, which would, I think, fill that same need for community that religion does now. That's probably too extreme, as not everyone wants to be part of creating a musical experience (though I believe that doing so is almost universally beneficial). But probably, it's just that shared goal between people (the choir's example of which is musicality and entertainment) that really matters, anyway.

Atheists, agnostics:  Want to provide an alternative to religion? Start (or join) a choir - we need more music in the world anyway. plus singing seems to confer some health benefits, too! - or a Toastmasters club, or some other group whose goals matter but whose community matters - even just a little bit - more.

Thanks again, Chad, and I apologize for the long post. I'm sure a better writer than I could have said this better in a quarter as many words.

"Atheists, agnostics: Want to provide an alternative to religion? Start (or join) a choir"

One way to stand out would be to start a screechy, I mean shouty, atheist choir, modeled after these guys!

Chad,

Sorry if there was a misunderstanding there. I was actually voicing my support for your position, just trying to voice it in my own words (and in some of yours). I was just referring to the Myers/Nisbet dichotomy as dominating the scienceblog-o-sphere. I personally am more aligned with PZ on this, since I think he gets horribly misrepresented (ie, his clip in Expelled really isn't that horrible, IMO). But I do think that there is room for those of us who aren't as strident to have a voice, too. I'm actually glad you wrote this post, because it is in line with my thinking.

So, in other words, I'm with ya!!

Anna K.,

I think there is a huge need and potentially a big demand for non-God/supernatural believing communities which would also take on ethics instruction for children and young people, and would also teach them that their potential and value as human persons is not best represented by advertisers.

Religious non-right:

While I can't see how this won't get me in hot water, I hope it won't light me on fire, but I tend to think that these will be impossible to create. Not so much for the non-God part (not all religions are theistic) but for the non-supernatural part. I have to admit that I'm biased though.

We have it already... it's called "college" (/snark)

All snarkiness aside, I really do believe that. It probably would get ME in hot water with some religious groups, but the college/university environment is one where primarily secular values and a strong, cohesive moral view based on tolerance, inquiry, rational thought, and ethics is ideally put forth. We also create a sense of community that lasts a lifetime (alumni functions worldwide even for the smallest schools, community events, lifelong connections, etc.). And all of this occurs without the explicit need for religion. Yes, religious groups have a presence on most (all?) campuses, but they are not the basis for the ethos of the campus.

I dunno, Chad, I think certain screechy monkey types may indeed want to spend more time learning how to mock major religions--if only so they could get it right, instead of assuming all religions are pretty much like the annoying Christian church they had to go to in grade school but maybe with different holiday clothes. Otherwise they'll continue to be baffled when "But pi is not 3!" fails to sway millions of Jews into casting aside their Torahs, for example. Religion is about many things, and distilling it down to belief that smart people can be argued out of is not only ignorant, it's pointless.

rjb: Sorry if there was a misunderstanding there. I was actually voicing my support for your position, just trying to voice it in my own words (and in some of yours).

My bad.
I was reading that very quickly after a really busy morning (in addition to preparing and then giving an E&M lecture, we had an Admissions open house today, so I was running around for that). I thought you were repeating the really common willful misreading of what I said, and just phrasing it better than most.

For what it's worth, while religion may be a source of ethical grounding, it seems to me that it is nether necessary nor sufficient to produce ethical people. I say this as someone who teaches ethics (to adults, but all of them used to be children), and as a parent trying to train two children to be ethical (which takes more than a few hours a week).

rjb, I see your point about college, and I agree that a good college can help instill and reinforce those ideals. But I'm seeing people drifting to organized religion when they have young children. People who did not go to church for years start looking when they have little kids. I thought it was just me, but I've watched others go through the same.

Secular folk really have very little to offer to families with preschoolers and school children, as far as I see, and I think that's a shame. I believe a lot of families would welcome a secular community which parallels the kind of community support you get from a church and which provides years of ethical teaching for their young children, which is after all what churches do; and I don't see how an alumni association currently fits the gap. (Or maybe my alumni association wasn't as community-minded as yours? Ours was more margarita-minded, as far as I could tell, not that I'm complaining)

But a college community has good potential as a model to work from.

Dr. Free-ride,

Since I have teenagers and I also have a near monopoly on:

1)access to money
2)access to the car, and
3)access to computer time,

I find that blackmail is most useful when it comes to eliciting behaviors that give an external appearance of being ethical.

rjb: Interestingly, while I went to a Catholic university, my faith was strengthed as was my love of science. I never felt any schism between the two. Also, I think you are right about college, but it is far too late in life to suffice as the only moral training ground.

I think this discussion in vastly underestimating the role of religion/faith for people. Yes, community is a large chunk of it. Yes, morals are a large part of it. But what about the traditions, the rituals, the shared history? These are not so easy to replace. The depth of religion draws me. No offense to Wilson Fowlie, but for me, a choir or other social community group is not suffient. I may be a moderate and not a fundamentalist Christian, but I am a deeply spiritual person. I have not found that depth in anything else. Also, I must disclose that I am a strong introvert and no doubt this plays a big part of my being drawn to contemplative faith.

Anna K., I STRONGLY disagree with your premise that secular folks have little to offer in terms of raising young children. I agree that churches are the dominant paradigm for socially organizing individuals, but that's not the only way. When I was young, my mother organized together with other mothers to start a nursery school/kindergarten. Yes, it was held in a church, but it was independent--and secular. There are other types of youth groups (boys and girls clubs, YM/WCA, boy scouts and girl scouts) that have varying relationships to religion, but aren't fundamentally set in religion. These groups exist, but they aren't viewed as primary options for communities in the US because of the dominance of the church culture. It is difficult to form a cohesive community as an atheist, because most of us tend to keep our views to ourselves publicly.

So now the argument has come full circle, in my mind. This is exactly what Dawkins is trying to promote with his book. It is not specifically meant to trash religion (although he tries to do that as well). It is meant to be a rallying cry for atheists and agnostics to "come out of the closet" and it is an important first step towards forming the types of secular support and community groups. It's similar to what Larry Moran was saying before.

Europe, where church history is even more tied to their culture than in the US, has largely dispatched of the church as an organizing social center. So why can't we? Are we really that different?

I agree with you more or less completely on this Chad. I really have very little to add; your post and the ending paragraph of Daryl's comment (third on the list) more or less sum up my position.

To me, the whole idea of religion seems largely irrelevant. Please do not misinterpret me here - I do not think it a waste of time, far from it - to me religion is like a painting on the canvas that is the moral and philosophical base of our society. Sometimes this might be a very impressive painting, a veritable masterpiece, a Mona Lisa, testament to the ingenuity of religious scholars. Sometimes it might not even be a religion that is painted upon this canvas, but instead some other form of ideological system. But these things seem all more or less equivalent.

Nonetheless, I do not believe religion to be the canvas, and hence it does not seem to me to be the natural fundamental lens through which to view aspects of morality and dialogue on such matters. Nor do many aspects of contemporary science, for that matter, since discourse tends to be in terms of theories that can be rather restrictive, or limited in scope to a particular area (eg biology). It seems to me to be necessary to peer deeper, to question the underlying assumptions both within religion and more broadly within social science in order to get sensible answers. In particular, such an investigation suggests an application of the variational calculus towards balancing the variables of a social dynamical system, or, to put it more bluntly, to "walk the middle path". Even getting things approximately right should be ok, since it seems to me that most solutions to such problems should be minima and hence locally stable.

So I suppose in this sort of sense I subscribe to a kind of Buddhist philosophy regarding morality. So yes, moderation, not apathy.

rjb, I'm not sure I'm reading you correctly, so bear with me, but it seems like you're saying that youth groups like the the Y and the Scouts are still too churchy for a lot of secular people; which means that the only group you mentioned as purely secular was the group your mother organized.

Which does indeed seem to bring it full circle. I fully agree that it would be a good thing for atheists to be more public and to form more community groups; it sounds like we will have to disagree on whether Dawkins' approach helps or hurts.

rjb, you know what the "C" in YMCA and YWCA stand for, and that the Boy Scouts are opposed to atheism, right?

To those who think that religion is essential for society, I can only assume that you live in the US. Here in the UK, religion is vestigial, and we get along just fine. Much of northern Europe is just the same.